"in true liberal fashion, mao thought that conscripted service would civilize the military, instead of militarizing civilians'

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been slogging through the goodwill/quarter-bin classic 'open secret: the kissinger/nixon doctrine in asia' lately, the authors are mostly uninterested in nakedly baiting the left like this (introduction by noam chomsky, whom ann coulter would undoubtedly label "treasonous", and of course chomsky himself is, or was, in favor of a draft, calling it 'a citizen's army') so this sentence (from memory, dont have the book at work) popped out -- can we break it down, in all its parts? "like a true liberal", and "mao thought conscripted service would....", and the central conceit, of course

is conscription a liberal idea? the modern american draft was introduced in 1940 under fdr, and michael harrington (author of 'the other america') was defiantly in favor of it. is conscription a marxist idea? harrington is one of the great socialists of our time, and while new skool not-really-socialist china still has a mandatory draft, its very easy to evade and mostly involves training instead of actual service (presumably a reserve in case the need for a draft arises, like in america). did mao directly realize that a massed, involuntary body of service was the only successful means against his own 'people's war' guerilla tactics (used by the viet cong to eventually run off a superior, conscripted american military). is there a connection between pro-draft hegelians like mao and pro-draft hegelians like fukuyama? (fukuyama's critiques of the war in iraq are boring and pragmatic, and though he made a big deal of his decision not to vote for bush in 2004 he now serves on bush's bio-ethics committee and, i think, begrudgingly supports his doctrine, which leans towards the language of supporting a draft while acknowedging the political catastrophe it would ignite). would a drafted army serve better in our current occupation? dems use potential draft as a scare tactic, and conservatives mostly shrug it off. the general belief is that, barring some world war 3/apocalypse scenario, we'll never see forced conscription in our lifetimes. most everyone i know who ever served (including ilxers tombot & blount) are against any draft, except for rhetorical purposes, allowing the sons & daughters of politicans to die in their misjudged wars). does conscription civilize the military? does it militarize civilians? which idealogies (rosseau vs hegel vs schopenhaur vs marx vs paleocons vs neocons vs etc) are aligned with either side of this?

― _, Monday, 17 October 2005 14:26 (twenty years ago)

Was the Red Army newly drafted or did Trotsky simply reorganize the old Tsarist army?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 17 October 2005 14:29 (twenty years ago)

i dont think the tsarists were doing so great after ww1 anyway, after the revolution most of the soldiers were sent back to their farms and some were re-drafted into the red army, referred to as 'raw material' in trotskys military writings- 'i do not know of anyone among us who has ever affirmed that the voluntary principle is a sound principle for organizing a truly popular, democratic army', also justified through the declining power of the voluntary british army

― _, Monday, 17 October 2005 14:39 (twenty years ago)

so basically just reorganized but it meant a lot for trotsky to pretend that some kind of intense worker's metamorphosis had occured during the interim

― _, Monday, 17 October 2005 14:40 (twenty years ago)

As it did for the Bolshevik organization in general, it made the mythmaking more self-consistent afterwards. Didn't the British army switch to a draft towards the end of WWI? (I'm trying to tease out the actions of armies in WWI as precisely how it would feed into conceptions of military conscription in WWII.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 17 October 2005 14:42 (twenty years ago)

Kind of off-topic but this Wikipedia article about the Pals betallion of WWI is amazing/sad.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pals_battalion

― Jonothong Williamsmang (ex machina), Monday, 17 October 2005 14:46 (twenty years ago)

you can't 'civilize the military', it's a contradiction in terms. i'm not making a peacenik point, but neither of these great 'socialists' trotsky and mao were able to bring about a 'civilizing' army.

the brit army only went over to conscription c. 1916; before then there were vast numbers of volunteers who all died at the somme.

in the second world war, though, and this might be more apposite, the big debate in the uk was about conscripting factory workers and especially miners, with people of the left who had no problem with the service draft opposing this measure. of courseit was devised by people who called themselves socialist (ie believed in state ownership of industry).

― N_RQ, Monday, 17 October 2005 14:47 (twenty years ago)

So is the idea of sentence parts 1 & 2 that Mao betrayed his marxist foundations by relying on a liberal conception of "civilize"?

― J (Jay), Monday, 17 October 2005 14:48 (twenty years ago)

(I think I need more context).

― J (Jay), Monday, 17 October 2005 14:49 (twenty years ago)

sorry i mentioned i dont have the book with me to warn yall that i cant really provide context! i think it explains itself though, they were trying to articulate the morality and effectiveness of progressive social change by nonviolent means (gandhi, jesus, MLK) vs progressive social change thru violent means (stalin, mao)

― _, Monday, 17 October 2005 14:55 (twenty years ago)

i don't think it says much about mao, or liberalism. i'm hard-presed to think of liberals who have been in favour of conscription -- ok fdr in 1940 but this was quite limited (?) and obv this was during a 'tense time'. the british government who took us into ww1 was liberal by name, and they didn't bring in a draft for 18 months.

but mao probably had a very different sense of 'the military' than either britain then or america in 1940, and he'd probably refuse the concepts on offer here. yes, people would be 'militarized', but it'd be a people's army. the brit army of ww1 was never going to be a people's army: the class character was plain as day. probably similar in the states.

[stalin was not trying to bring about progressive social change, any more than napoleon]

― N_RQ, Monday, 17 October 2005 14:57 (twenty years ago)

well yeah i guess they were hard pressed for examples and didnt want to pick on black panthers in 1972

― _, Monday, 17 October 2005 15:02 (twenty years ago)

anyway i named 2 major figures on the left besides fdr who are/were in favor of conscription, michael harrington and noam chomsky

― _, Monday, 17 October 2005 15:03 (twenty years ago)

but yeah thats one of my questions, especially in a left-leaning book which tars the draft as a liberal idea- where does conscription fall, politically? i dont think its simply right wing

― _, Monday, 17 October 2005 15:04 (twenty years ago)

xxpost

Yeah, I know you didn't have the book with you but I guess I just don't see the question as breaking the way you do. But that's okay.

― J (Jay), Monday, 17 October 2005 15:09 (twenty years ago)

I think it can depend on the context of the situation and the predilections of those able to institute it. In other words, if shit gets bad enough, everybody's going to call for conscription at some point, but I think it depends on the particulars of those in power.

I don't think it's necessarily a left/right thing as much as a spectrum between giving the gov't more power vs less.

― kingfish neopolitan sundae (kingfish 2.0), Monday, 17 October 2005 15:14 (twenty years ago)

i dont think it breaks down like that, plenty of european countries have mandatory civil service not during wartime and as already noted fdr came with that in 1940, 'giving the govt more power' is ostensibly is a leftist trait but its also giving the military more resources, which is usually belongs to the right, but its frequently condemned by the right and supported by the left, what does it all mean, etc etc

― _, Monday, 17 October 2005 15:17 (twenty years ago)

also can ile's useless grad students offer perspective on the hegel vs rosseau stuff? does this shit inform policy as much as some policy journals would have you believe? why did the grandfather of socialism hate conscription so much while his children endorsed it?

― _, Monday, 17 October 2005 15:21 (twenty years ago)

idealogical children of course not actually little kevin and brittany rousseau

― _, Monday, 17 October 2005 15:22 (twenty years ago)

i think one potential problem here is our (continuing) conflation of liberalism and socialism. i can see conscription being utilized as a socialist tool, but not as a liberal tool

― terry lennox. (gareth), Monday, 17 October 2005 15:25 (twenty years ago)

was fdr a socialist? is chomsky?

― _, Monday, 17 October 2005 15:27 (twenty years ago)

(not rhetorical questions, you can argue both)

― _, Monday, 17 October 2005 15:28 (twenty years ago)

im just leaving work now, so itll be a while, but, i wasnt really referring to either fdr or chomsky as context there, but to a more general conflation of the two terms

ive never read chomsky, i have to admit i know very little about him

― terry lennox. (gareth), Monday, 17 October 2005 15:30 (twenty years ago)

actually, im re-reading the question title more closely, and i think i misread it before. its not really accusing mao of 'liberalism', or of saying that conscription is a 'liberal theme', its more that its implying that if conscription were to occur it would have a civilizing effect, and that this is the classic 'liberal mistake'

ie "if we open up them, it is they that will be changed by us, not us that will be changed by them

ie, the classic liberal mistake is "our ideas are self-evidently better than theirs"

is that what its getting at?

― terry lennox. (gareth), Monday, 17 October 2005 15:35 (twenty years ago)

because i can't really conceive as conscription as a liberal idea, because it runs counter to the individualist strand of liberalism (ie, that which is not prevalent in socialism in the same way, therefore conscription doesnt strike me as counter-socialist, necessarily)

― terry lennox. (gareth), Monday, 17 October 2005 15:38 (twenty years ago)

doesnt it also run counter to the more pronounced individualist strand of conservatism? it runs counter to any individualist strand!!

― _, Monday, 17 October 2005 15:40 (twenty years ago)

the classic liberal mistake is "our ideas are self-evidently better than theirs"

is that what its getting at?

That was closer to the way I was reading it initially. I don't think that's how trife was reading it, though.

― J (Jay), Monday, 17 October 2005 15:41 (twenty years ago)

i can think of many right-wing militia libertarian types who would believe conscription to be a liberal idea

― _, Monday, 17 October 2005 15:42 (twenty years ago)

ok, agreed. i mean liberalism as a whole really, rather than individualist strand within. not necessarily of conservatism or socialism though

― terry lennox. (gareth), Monday, 17 October 2005 15:44 (twenty years ago)

look i read it as making several jumps, first of which being that mao is someone who does things in 'true liberal fashion', and then that true liberal fashion is endorsement of conscripted service for the stated aims, and finally that conscription does not accomplished those stated aims. all of those require explanation not given in the text, but i believe they are defensible, which i put to yall!

― _, Monday, 17 October 2005 15:44 (twenty years ago)

terry's got it
once again I don't believe this "conservative vs. liberal" dichotomy truly applies in modern paultix but I think the sentence, read correctly, is that the mistake here is to assume that you can fight monsters without becoming one, or stare into the abyss etc., and that's being rather sloppily painted as a "liberal" mistake, despite the fact that social conservatives make the same kind of error CONSTANTLY.

― TOMBOT, Monday, 17 October 2005 15:44 (twenty years ago)

i can think of many right-wing militia libertarian types who would believe conscription to be a liberal idea

aha, now it gets more interesting. is this an american thing? i can see the take that conscription=just another federalist tactic to interfere

but, for this conception to work, doesnt it hold that US Govt=establishment=liberals, ....the backlash theory even?

― terry lennox. (gareth), Monday, 17 October 2005 15:47 (twenty years ago)

well despite the rightward shift of american government, theres still a large number of americans who are much further right of it

― _, Monday, 17 October 2005 15:48 (twenty years ago)

xxpost

totally defensible. I just wasn't sure in which sense "liberal" was being used, that's all.

― J (Jay), Monday, 17 October 2005 15:50 (twenty years ago)

The US used to be far more 'moderate,' if not liberal. Part of the effect of phasing out ROTC programs at universities has been the rightwingification of the military... so the next generation of generals will be hawkish conservative kooks that say 'warrior' in every sentence.

― andy --, Monday, 17 October 2005 15:52 (twenty years ago)

mao is someone who does things in 'true liberal fashion'
Well he did change the status quo quite a bit. I mean actually he might even be labelled a radical! But "in true radical fashion" doesn't really have the same ring to it. Oh well.

true liberal fashion is endorsement of conscripted service for the stated aims
If that's a reform that needs to be made, then so be it! Legalize it, I'll advertise it. That conscription as a social program, e.g. everybody join the American Welfare State Public Works Force where you get paid peanuts and live in little dorms for 2 years while training and doing community aid projects and handing out bottled water, that seems like it's one of those "enforcing change in society by rule of law" shits that "liberals" would dig

conscription does not accomplished those stated aims
well it tends not to, yeah! I mean it didn't even win us the war on Communism. Conscription only ever gets you a buncha extra people with big chips on their shoulder. Volunteers really do do better work!

― TOMBOT, Monday, 17 October 2005 15:53 (twenty years ago)

and again, as noted, the book is left-leaning, critical of the vietnam war and the draft in such, which the criticism of mao somehow complements

― _, Monday, 17 October 2005 15:53 (twenty years ago)

that was an xpost to j

― _, Monday, 17 October 2005 15:54 (twenty years ago)

You can come at the idea of a draft from the left or the right, really -- just depends on your arguments. Just a few years ago you had liberal Charles Rangel kinda floating the notion in terms of class equality: in the event of a major war, the brunt of the service (and the dying) falls on the working class and people without non-military life-options; a draft (theoretically) spreads the service across social and economic class; etc. And it's easy to see why this left version of conscription would hold lots of sway in the early 20th century, since militaries have traditionally been really class-divided -- "raw material" soldiers led by career officers from the gentry. Modern warfare makes the volunteer military work beautifully: you need less men and more skilled men, and it's viable as a career path in itself. But once you have a war on that requires raising a larger force, you immediately run into the same class problem.

And on the other hand there's the familiar nationalist "socialist" / fascist routine for conscription: easy to come at it from either direction. Which is maybe why the sentence doesn't actually say that conscription is a liberal idea. It says that Mao thought conscription would civilize the military, which is a different proposition -- the belief, one supposes, that drafting across all classes will bring education and higher ability to the force. And to be honest I feel like I've seen a similar line chewed on, in a kind of unappetizing way, from the left today -- it starts with some bullshit stereotyped idea that our force in Iraq consists of ignorant racist hillbillies with no cultural sensitivity, and it ends with someone on the left wishing there were some way for enlightened folks like them to be the face of American force (just in theory, of course, they certainly don't plan on going).

― nabiscothingy, Monday, 17 October 2005 16:25 (twenty years ago)

BTW to Rangel's credit I kinda think he was just floating the idea as a way of provoking examination of the issue, not a far-fetched push for an actual draft. And the problem with the idea is that conscription doesn't really seem to correct so much for those class issues; the example in Vietnam was still a significant split between, say, working-class (and largely black) in-the-shit grunts and upper-class safety (or student deferments) (or Air National Guards). Part of that's just the natural result of better education prepping people for more-advanced military jobs, and to be fair there have been lots of spaces where the military gives a fairer shot to disadvantaged people than the world at large ever will, but the bottom line is that conscription has never really been able to break down real-world power dynamics very efficiently.

― nabiscothingy, Monday, 17 October 2005 16:32 (twenty years ago)

well, this was resolved easily

― _, Monday, 17 October 2005 18:01 (twenty years ago)

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